Still the Worst

As I have mentioned once or twice or thrice or a billion times, I do not like Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Yesterday, I read an interview with him, in which he once again illustrated why his medical license should have been rescinded years ago:

YOU'VE GOTTEN SOME FLAK BEFORE FOR PRESENTING A DIAGNOSIS OF CELEBRITIES WHO YOU WEREN'T TREATING, INCLUDING LINDSAY LOHAN, WHO TWEETED "I THOUGHT REAL DOCTORS TALKED TO PATIENTS IN OFFICES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS." DOES THAT CONCERN YOU GOING INTO A SHOW BASED LARGELY AROUND OPINION?

Pinsky: It's bizarre to me that you can have political commentators, sports commentators, weather commentators, but with medicine, people go, "You can't do that." It's like, if you show me a picture of a rash, I don't have to know the person to tell you what that rash is. There are lots of medical conditions that you can diagnose never having met the person. Soon enough, we'll have telemedicine and do it through the Internet -- that's the future. You can educate people about politics, criminality, the law, but not about medicine? It's just silly ... I really don't want to hurt anybody, but to say the truth and to offer words that might be helpful in understanding what some of these conditions are. I can't see any reason not to do that. That's changing things for the better.

Wow. Among the many, many things wrong with that fuckery, the mendacious equivalencies are truly breathtaking. Diagnosing mental illness is the same as diagnosing a rash. Sure. Political commentary is the same as medical diagnostics. Sure. And the Hippocratic Oath's note about abstention from "whatever is harmful or mischievous" is just a recommendation, and as long as he doesn't intend to hurt anyone, the demonstrable evidence that his unsolicited pontifications about celebrities' medical problems hurts them doesn't matter. Okay.

Then, last night, I watched the Teen Mom 2 season wrap-up with Dr. Drew. These episodes, in which he interviews the young women and their families, are always a garbage nightmare trainwreck of slut-shaming and retrofuck views on mothering and marriage.

After the episode aired, these were the notes I jotted down:

Shorter Dr. Drew: 1. You're a stupid slut who made a horrible mistake which can only be rectified by getting married. 2. You should be grateful for any ostensible crumb of kindness anyone shows you, even if they have manifestly obvious ulterior motives, like lending you money just to have something to hold over your head and control you. 3. The people in your life who are abusive have good reasons, and here they are, and it's kind of understandable when you consider what a stupid slut you are, amirite?

It was awful to watch.

And the only one of the male partners who came in for any serious criticism was the boyfriend who is black, who Drew described, while mocking the woman who dates him, as a homeless criminal. Which he is. But so is the white father of one of the babies who's deeply in arrears in his child support payments and bops between the mother's house and his parents' house without paying rent at either place. He, however, was not described as a homeless criminal. No, he got asked by Dr. Drew if he was considering marrying the mother of his child, who he routinely calls a "bitch."

Dr. Drew: The Worst.